@bgriffin wrote:
I'm curious for those of you who attempt to maximize your rewards how much per year you actually "make" doing that?
I put about $100,00 a year on credit cards, minimum, depending on what I have going on that year. They are paid off every month .
Always $20,000 + on my Hilton Am Ex. That gets me gold benefits at Hilton for the year.
I use Chase Southwest Airlines for flights. I still have 100,000 points right now, after spending a ton of them for my family to fly in the last 12 months. I trade luxury for free airfare (sorry SteveSoCal - I'm slumming it on the plane).
Target Red Card (5% off at Target). I get 95% of the groceries there now. No sense in doing grocery shops for $17. It's a complete waste of my time to overpay for the same stuff, have to go during a certain time frame, and then write a report.
USAA Visa. 1.5% cash back when I hit a certain threshold. I needed this when I had some purchases exceeding $30,000 at a time.
JetBlue Barclaycard and Carnival Barclaycard. I use them for my fun trips. I have a bazillion points. Probably going to fly to the Caribbean again.
Most of these have promotional categories, so I try to keep track of which one to use for 5% on any given month for restaurants and gasoline etc.
I don't really go out of my way to maximize. For example, I won't spend an extra $20 to get 1.5% back. That's a foolish waste of time.